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The editor of this anthology of reading on adolescence opted for reaching a broad audience in preference to offering a more thorough-going reference book for a more specialized audience. The articles in
the book represent analytic, developmental, and sociological approaches. The readings are divided into four parts. Part 1 refers to cultural background: historical and cultural determinants, and is represented, among others, by Stone and Church, Muensterberger, and Margaret Mead. Part 2 is “Normal Development,” where, among others, are papers by Freud, Anna Freud, Erikson, and Blos. Part 3 is on Psychopathology, on which some of the authors are A. Aichhorn, Adelaide Johnson, and K. Kenniston. The last section is Adolescence in the Contemporary World, to which E. J. Anthony, Henry Rosner and others have contributed articles. This last section is the least effective, the least comprehensive. In general Esman has chosen well, but there are no references to blacks, runaways, or adolescent parenthood.
There are, of course, some prize articles. Anna Freud's paper on adolescence is a gem, and of importance to analysts, who treat adults. She states that in the analysis of adults there is reactivation in an affective manner of the pre-gential and Oedipal conflicts but, in contrast, often it glosses over the intense, dramatic conflicts of the adolescent period. Her section (p. 134) on defense against infantile object ties, is a particularly helpful one. This article can also be found in the Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, Volume 11, 1956, or Anna Freud's Collected Works.
The other highlight of the book is an article by Blos on “The Second Individuation Process of Adolescence.” This is a profound and rich paper.
Analytic work with adolesence demonstrates almost monotonously, the reinvolvement of ego and superego function with infantile object relations…. I came to the conclusion that the loss of psychic restructuring by regression represents the formidable psychic work of ado